What is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing (SE™) focuses on resolving symptoms of trauma, stress, and shock that are being held in our nervous systems and bodies. It is an approach which orients itself to the conscious tracking of bodily sensations. One of the things that happens in traumatized nervous systems is that people often get stuck in shut down and freeze states. Living our day to day lives over long periods of time in this way can result in a loss of capacity to feel, loss of sensitivity to smell and touch, general feeling of numbness and deadness in the experience of living, eventually leading to psychological syndromes & physical illness. The way back to deeper connection with ourselves and being able to experience more pleasure and aliveness, is to bring the bodies natural healing capacity back online. Sensation is the language of the body, by orienting to the positive sensational level of consciousness we are triggering the body’s natural healing capacity to come back online more fully. Then the healing process becomes a simple process of sharing presence and allowing the healing movements to happen in their own time.
One of the things we often forget when have experienced a lot of trauma and our nervous system is in a state of shut down is to orient to life in a more positive way, this is because the patterns of shutdown we are stuck in naturally keep our consciousness locked into seeing the world and ourselves in a negative way. In Somatic Experiencing we encourage orientation to positive sensations and pleasurable experiences as a way to remind the client’s nervous system that it dosen’t need to remain stuck. Focusing on resources opens space for feelings and sensations associated to past traumas to be digested more fully. We are helped by the safety of supportive presence, loving presence has the capacity to shift our nervous system state from isolated shutdown into a healing co-regulatory experience. Reminding us that it is safe to trust each other again. Bringing our nervous systems back into a healthy fluid breathing state.
Basic Principles
Here are the basic principles of Somatic Experiencing:
Body Awareness: SE emphasizes developing a heightened awareness of bodily sensations. By tuning into positive physical sensations, clients are allowed to digest any tensions, difficult feelings/sensations or discomforts, that are trauma or stress related.
Pendulation: This involves moving between states of distress and states of positive support and safety. Moving between what we call the Healing Vortex and the Trauma Vortex. By pendulating between these states, SE helps us to reclaim the fluid resilience of the healthy nervous system, increasing our tolerance for distressing sensations and emotions and allowing us to feel stronger and more alive.
Titration: SE uses a slow gradual approach to processing trauma, focusing on small pieces of the traumatic experience rather than trying to confront the entire experience all at once. Like a gentle, occasional release of trapped tensions, with pauses in between. This helps prevent re-traumatization and the feeling of losing control. Its important the survival part of the client remains in the conscious feeling of safety and control.
Discharge and Completion: Trauma responses often involve incomplete survival actions (such as fight, flight, or freeze). SE aims to facilitate the natural completion of these responses, allowing the nervous system to release trapped energy and return to a state of harmony.
Resource Development: SE encourages reorientation to internal and external resources providing a sense of support, safety, and stability. This helps the nervous system to remember its natural state of being, which is not stuck but fluid and breathing, resilient and grounded.
Self-Regulation: A key aim of SE is to support the individual's capacity for self-regulation, helping their nervous system to become healthy again & increasing their capacity for loving resilient presence.
SE is effective in addressing PTSD and developmental attachment trauma by offering a pathway to identifying where individuals are "stuck" in threat response patterns and providing therapeutic pathways to transition out of these challenging physiological states. Sources of trauma can be diverse, including accidents, medical procedures, physical or sexual abuse, emotional trauma, neglect, warfare, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, systemic issues, inherited genetic factors, or chronic exposure to fear and conflict.
Somatic Experiencing is an integrative approach that combines elements of psychology, biology, and neuroscience, recognizing the significant role the body plays in processing and healing trauma. Somatic Experiencing is the life work of Dr Peter Levine.
For more info on SE
www.traumahealing.org
